An elementary school teacher was arrested on Wednesday, Jan. 29 in California after 180 living snakes and 224 dead were found in his home.
53-year-old William Buchman, a sixth grade teacher in the Mariners elementary school in Newport Beach was arrested by Santa Ana, California police after various neighbors complained about the bad smell coming from his house, located on 2900 North Fernwood Drive, reported Los Angeles Times on its website.
Faced with continuous complaints, police officers went to Buchman's residence on Wednesday, Jan. 29 and found over 200 dead snakes, and almost the same amount of living snakes.
"We thought someone had died. We couldn't open the windows in the bedrooms. My wife began to vomit and vomit," said 66-year-old Forest Long, Buchman's neighbor to Los Angeles Times.
Over these facts, William Buchman might face up to 7 charges of animal cruelty, owing to the amount of snakes found in his residence.
Area neighbors told the media that the 53-year-old man had lived alone since the death of his mother two years ago, and authorities are investigating whether the trauma over the loss of her mother had something to do with the incident, said Reuters in its report.
The same source revealed that Buchman told authorities that he's involved in a kind of snake breeding called "morphing", in which owners attempt to breed different color patterns on the reptiles.
The man said this kind of enterprise was popular and lucrative 10 years ago, but that today, this practice doesn't report the same profits due to the proliferation of various snake species.
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